Staff Reporter:
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner SM Sazzat Ali on Friday said that intensified security measures have been put in place on Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan premises to ensure the peaceful holding of the month-long Amar Ekushey Book Fair, set to begin on Saturday.
“We have taken stringent security measures like previous years to ensure the peaceful holding of the Amar Ekushey Book Fair,” he told a press briefing after inspecting the security arrangements at the fair venue.
He said the DMP has also beefed up the security arrangement in and around the Dhaka University and its surrounding areas to make the security foolproof.
“Required police personnel have been deployed in the fair venue and its adjoining areas in large numbers to oversee the security arrangements,” he said.
The DMP chief said they have set up a control room to monitor the security arrangements round the clock.
He also said senior officers, especially deputy commissioner of Ramna division, will supervise the overall security arrangement on the fair ground.
“Apart from the police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and various intelligence agencies have been assigned to enforce security measures,” he said.
“The entire fair venue has been brought under CCTV surveillance,” he said, adding that sufficient lighting arrangements have been made at night to prevent any untoward incidents.
The DMP chief said plying of heavy vehicles inside the Dhaka University areas will be stopped throughout the month of February.
The road from Doyel Chattar to TSC is a very significant one and it will be opened or closed depending on the rush of the book lovers, he said.
Sazzat said that book-feeding stations and lost-and-found centers have been set up at the fair venue.
If anything or any child is lost at the fair ground, the police will help to find it out upon receiving complaint, he said.
The DMP chief asked all concerned to look into the matter so that no hawker can create chaos by setting up their food courts on the fair and charge two or three times higher than that of the actual prices of the food items.
He asked the DMP traffic department to take necessary measures to ease the traffic movement during the book fair.
